A study published in the August edition of Health Affairs found that nursing home residents are satisfied with their overall care, but feel they could benefit from improvements to food and activities in facilities.
The study was conducted over three years, using consumer satisfaction surveys in Massachusetts. According to an article on McKnights.com, researchers hoped that their findings might help the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services decide to make consumer surveys a part of national nursing home report cards.
The study was conducted by researchers from University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Public Health Science, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Irvine. They found that nursing homes with higher staffing levels and fewer citations often had higher satisfaction rates. They also discovered that non-profit and government owned facilities scored higher than for-profit homes.
The consumer surveys asked residents and their families about their overall satisfaction with the facility and if they would recommend the facility to a friend. The results of the findings showed that 90 percent of those surveyed would recommend their facility.